Mainstream
by Jonathon Oak
Summary: Within a den of inquity and sin, an Archangel ponders the road that lead him to lay prone in a ventilation shaft hanging precariously above a bottomless pit. A one shot fanfic thats rated M for some naughty language, since you can never be too sure these.


**Disclaimer: Mass Effect, its characters, settings and other trappings are the property of Bioware. I, merely a fan with delusions of having semi-decent literary skills, claim no ownership over them whatsoever. This is merely my humble tribute.**

)O(

_Archangel, Archangel,_

_Spread out thy wings,_

_Archangel, Archangel,_

_Thy destiny sings,_

_Archangel, Archangel,_

_Drive darkness away,_

_Archangel, Archangel,_

_Come save the day._

)O(

**Sector II-J, Alpha Structure, Omega. 0346 hrs. One year, eleven months and two days after the death of Commander Jane Shepard.**

There was once a time when Garrus was mainstream. Mainstream in the turian sense, that was. Stuff like doing your duty for your family, the turian race and the good of the galaxy, defending the ideals of and principles of the Hierarchy and obeying the will of your superiors and elders. In all honesty, it wasn't all that long ago. Heck, this time last year he was doing his rounds on the Presidium, putting up with the petty complaints of rich, well-to-do idiots who insisted on venting their frustration at life's annoyances on him because he wore a uniform and had to refer to them as "sir" or "ma'am". Occasionally "you" when he wasn't too sure of the gender, although that tended to get him into trouble. It's considered impolite apparently.

He wasn't happy with it as such. At times it was just damned exhausting, requiring a monumental effort simply to get out of bed before his shifts and put on the badge and blues. But those days it seemed worth it. Those days Shepard was still around to remind him that the rules and regulations, annoying as they may have seemed, worked. But now with her gone…

For a moment Garrus was forced to close his eyes as a wave of remorse struck him again, just as keenly as always. Nearly two years on and still the knowledge that Commander Shepard, someone he considered more of a friend and a guiding figure than merely a commanding officer, was no longer there struck him like a sharp blow to the stomach. When he thought about it he never really did get over the shock of switching on the entertainment centre one unassuming morning and seeing, in full three dimensional and high definition glory, pictures of the decimated _Normandy_ crew and their captain missing, almost certainly dead. Some part of him still wasn't sure if he was stuck in a dream, waiting to wake up and find out she was still there, alive and well. Her words of wisdom and encouragement just an extranet call away. And if her death wasn't bad enough, what had happened to her afterwards on the Citadel News Network was even worse. After all she went through, after all she suffered for them, after all she achieved, there the Council and the media were, tearing into her ghost and raping the pieces. Declaring the Reapers a mad fantasy was one thing; Shepard never did have any concrete proof beyond her visions and a private confrontation with Sovereign. Damn, even declaring Sovereign a _geth_ ship of all things was tolerable. But painting Saren as a misguided, misunderstood hero? That _traitor_? It was the straw that broke the caramel's back, as humans sometimes said (he never understood the phrase however).

It was a few days after her memorial service that it all fell apart. One day, after a particularly trying encounter with a human demanding he run in a merchant for refusing a refund (despite the fact he had no proof of purchase) he was really torn into by an officer when he got back to HQ. Something about a uniform violation, or maybe it was an insubordinate attitude? He didn't remember anymore; it wasn't that important. Either way, Garrus just lost it. Smacking the officer in the face, throwing his badge at him as lay stunned on the floor; Garrus abandoned the corruption and red tape of C-Sec once more, swearing to himself that he'd do better.

In some ways he guessed he _had_ done better. But…

_Am I right? Would Shepard have done this?_

He gazed upwards towards a platform, several hundred yards above and across from where the mercs were to where he knew Sidonis was hidden. Not for the first he felt a surge of pride in his chest as he considered what he'd accomplished since he first arrived on the station a year ago, with nothing but his armour, a rifle and a few credits. The turian had done what Shepard had; he'd gathered a band of misfits and made them a single, cohesive unit of soldiers that had single-handedly pissed off just about every crime syndicate and merc band on Omega.

Except Aria of course; they wanted to make a difference, but they weren't suicidal. One step at a time.

It had been hard work, with too many close calls than he'd otherwise be comfortable with and each success paid with blood, tears and sweat, but it was paying off. There was a glimmer of hope for the people on the station, something distant promise that things could be better. No civilian casualties either, that was their rule. No one died who didn't ask for it. There were places now where people could actually lead a life in something that bore quite a resemblance to safety. Some people had even started singing songs of him, calling him by the moniker "Archangel", apparently after some sort of being from human mythology. It was everything he could have hoped to do in such a short amount of time.

_Then why do I still feel her disapproving of me?_

Garrus' mandibles twitched from the inside of his helmet, staring across a large chasm that dropped seemingly forever into darkness, with only orangey-red pinpricks of light to show where the metal walls continued. The sides were marked with long, gouging scratches from the debris that, in centuries past, would have been vented out as rubbish. Bright orange paint, dirty and scratched and written in a language that was only made intelligible by his visor, gave warnings of falling debris and commands to retreat to the nearest shelter whenever a klaxon sounded. Technically, the chute did go on forever, but only because it'd eventually vent you into space if you were unlucky enough to take a plunge.

Hopefully, if this plan worked out, Garrus wouldn't be in a position to experience that first hand. If Shepard couldn't survive being spaced, then he sure as hell wasn't going to be able to. Besides, he had too much to do here.

Hesitant due to lack of practise, Garrus said a silent prayer for her spirit, hoping she'd answer and inspire him to be half the warrior she was. And spirits knew; he was going to need all the help he could get with this. Garrus had never really paid much attention to the old ways before; his dad was a nominal believer and observed the usual rites, but his son seemed to just fall out of it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd attended a traditional festival, when the Wards on the Citadel would be decked with ancient banners extolling the names and virtues of past ancestors, prominent spirits and god-heroes of the turian religions of yore. It wasn't that he didn't believe, he just never felt compelled to take it seriously. With Shepard, though, it was different somehow. Sometimes when he was in the middle of a fight or when he was looking at the grateful faces of the people he was helping, he swore he could feel her with him, watching. Guiding. Protecting. It was a comforting thought, if nothing else.

And he knew she had her own beliefs. After Virmire, Shepard had spent a lot of time on her own in prayer, or so he'd been told. Since she did so in her quarters he'd never actually seen for himself, but it was common knowledge about the ship that she was at least somewhat religious. It was something she had held in common with Gunnery Chief Williams. Perhaps it was that knowledge of her place in the universe that gave her strength, a sense of purpose. Who knew? Either way, Garrus figured it wouldn't hurt to find religion himself.

After a moment, waiting the usual three heartbeats for the prayer to be heard, Garrus resumed his vigil.

Twitching an eyeball in a certain direction, a small, bright yellow target appeared on the HUD of his visor, which immediately picked up on a moving figure walking across a platform on the other side of the drop. A blown up image appeared in the top right corner, showing a grainy image of a male human dressed in Eclipse regalia, his dark skin contrasting with the bright colours rendered indistinguishable by the orange/yellow display. Next to the image, various lists appeared detailing species, approximate distance, identified weapons, armour and utilities and handy-dandy pointers about which spots were instant fatalities: head, neck, to the left of his chest and the groin area. Of course, that was after he got through the shielding and armour first, but that was never a problem before.

There was no sign of what Garrus wanted to see however.

Flicking his eye to one side, closing the HUD down, he murmured softly, "Monteague, any sign of the second party?"

A sing-song accent that Garrus still found odd to hear answered him, in the melodic tones of a human female, "Nope, nothing yet, Archangel."

Monteague was a favourite of Garrus's, largely because in a place that seemed ready to collapse in on itself from the amount of filth lining its corridors, Monteague was a breath of life, optimism and sunshine. Whenever the rest of the squad was miserable or disheartened, they could count on her to say the right thing and get them back in the game again and she was nearly always smiling. Back at headquarters, the area she slept in was covered in photographs, colourful pictures of fluffy, cute animals and cartoon characters and lots of pink and yellow, often in the shape of flowers or hearts. And her slight size belied her; the human was a crack shot with a rifle when she wanted to be. How someone like her wound up in a pit like this, Garrus could never fathom.

"What about you, Melanis?"

"Nothing here but bugs and a cramp. You sure this is the right place?"

"Are you doubting my intel, Melanis?" Sidonis's voice had a tone of mock indignation. "I'll remember that next time you're passed out under a table."

"Quit the chatter," Garrus said; he didn't want to be distracted by idle banter, entertaining as it was to listen to half the time. "Anyway, this guy isn't out here to enjoy the view. _Something's_ up."

"Well I wished it'd hurry up. I swear there's something crawling past my calf, and it has more legs than I'd like to think about."

"Don't worry, Melanis; you'll know if it's poisonous when it bites you."

"Fuck you, Sid."

"_Quit the chatter!_"

That, thankfully, shut them up. The first thing Garrus did when he was setting up the squad was installing discipline, and thankfully Melanis and Sidonis were both turian (twins in fact), and that made things easier. In blissful silence once more, Garrus allowed himself the freedom to shift a bare fraction of an inch in his prone position so as to relieve his muscles a bit, sprawled out in what would have once been a slag chute back in the days when Omega was still a mining facility rather than a hive-dive. The human on his visor certainly did look at though he was expecting something - he was pacing and his expression was twisted. Garrus recognised it as agitated.

Or else he needed the bathroom. It was hard to tell with humans.

Beyond the human, hidden a little in the shadows, Garrus's visor picked up four more mercs; three salarians and an asari. Monteague had also counted three others up on the walkways above. Sidonis suspected that there were probably more, and his hunches tended to be correct most of the time.

"What are you guys up to…?"

It was then that Monteague's voice sounded, unusually serious and hushed. "Incoming."

He heard it before he saw it. A low, distant rumble like the call of a predator back home on Palaven. It echoed about the metallic chamber to such a degree that would have been deafening to unprotected ears, but the squad's helmets would soften the worse of the volume as their audio compensators kicked in. Even then, Garrus heard a muffled growl of pain from Melanis, and it wasn't any better where he was sitting by a long shot. Around him the shaft vibrated, the rattling of metal a little too loose and the swaying of his vision as the shaft swung on its holdings far too liberal for the turian's liking. Knowing his luck, the thing would fall off its holdings and send him tumbling down to meet his ancestors. For that reason he kept deadly still, barely breathing as he watched a large shuttle descend the chamber from above, like some foul beast from legend about to decimate a village. On its side, the Blue Suns insignia could be seen.

Now all the guests to this little party have arrived…

In his chest, the turian's heart began pounding with excitement, his eyes not leaving the shuttle until it touched down on a large platform that seemed to be there by chance. He couldn't think of a reason why it needed to be there at all - he hazarded a guess at it being a recent addition after Omega became less industrial and more slums - but there it was all the same. Once it had touched down a door swung open and another human stepped out, quickly flanked by two batarians and a turian. Meeting the Eclipse human, the two simians greeting each other with a curt nod, they broke into a discussion.

By that time Weaver and the others should have moved in position, ready to give their signal. Then Garrus could send a little greeting of his own. Sent to right between a pair of large, white eyes.

"Keep toasty," Garrus purred, baring his sharp teeth predatorily as allowed himself the luxury of a grin. "In an hour's time, drinks at Afterlife will be on me."

With that he tightened his grip a little on his sniper rifle and shifted his eye to the scope, his visor picking up weak points in the armour of his quarry. Then he settled into his sniping position and waited for that opportune moment when he could give the signal and bring just a bit more calm to the hurricane of disorder that made up Omega.

Garrus used to be mainstream. But for all his father, C-Sec and Shepard told him, going off the road at times was more satisfying than he could ever have dreamed. At last he could really make a difference.


End file.
